Only Human
by SaveItSilly
Summary: Despite everything, Alex Mercer is still only human.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Prototype or F.E.A.R...well I own copies of the games, but...you get what I mean.**

* * *

**Only Human**

* * *

_A little girl in a little red dress standing in the doorway of a -_

In a flash she is gone. Alex blinks, the obsolete human habit recurring. Every now and again a stolen memory would bleed out into the real world, but this...he ignores it.

He sprints through the streets following the directions of a dead man, one of the last few of the Blackwatch base Red Crown. He had been hiding in a supply closet, praying a little too loud while death searched and rampaged.

After the siege had ended, the walking apocalypse had been at a loss for what to do next. So he'd followed the memories of another unethical project all the way to Fairport. It was on the way to Fort Detrick, so he'd decided to make a stop. Committing patricide wasn't enough, so he would tear down every thing that Blackwatch had ever touched. Tear them down, grind them into dust, and then burn what was left into ashes.

_Pale hands clutching the confining bars of a barbed wire fence the little girl in the little red dress stares out with eyes of pure black as she fades away as wind swept ash -_

Gone once more. Alex rushes forward and his arm swipes away the fence as easily as the wind carries fallen leaves. Nobody in the darkness, no hearts beat in the lifeless street.

He turns away while his beatless heart quickens.

He is searching for a vault in an abandoned fortress.

Empty fires flicker in the alleys, as pieces of trash float about on the eddying wind. No significant movement.

The streets are eerily quiet, unlike the city he was used to. There, Dana would rave about the night life, trying to drag him away from his preferred rooftops and welcoming air. She spoke of clubs filled with people, of streets bustling with activity. He thought only of running beneath the stars.

"Alex, come on, there's plenty to do!" Dana is exasperated, but there is a hint of humour in her eyes. "When's the last time you went dancing?"

Alex freezes. Dana's unworried laugh floats out from behind a wooden fence.

He walks cautiously to the laughter. "And for the record, we're gonna have to buy you new clothes. Ever considered something a little lighter? Might have an effect on your countenance. I'm not saying that the leather jacket screams 'leave me alone!' but...actually that's exactly what I'm saying."

He turns and sees a clustered group of trash cans.

Swallowing, he runs on.

_Flash of red. A shadow darts within the shadows - _

He catches movement in the corner of his eyes, and skids to a stop; kness bent, knife sharp blades tensed at his sides, black tendrils raised like hackles, growl catching in his throat. Nothing.

His arms transform back and licks his lips. An old human habit finding purpose in his sudden nervousness. He presses on.

Smog covers the stars. The industrial machine didn't sleep, even when its human workers retired for the night.

Finally, something moving in the darkness. He grins. Tangible, human bodies await. In their hands are metallic weapons, over their faces are visors, over their body is armour. Human, but inhuman enough that his adopted morality has no qualms about what is to come next.

With a roar, he launches into them and tears them apart in a macabre display. Like when a child crushes ants. Only the ants feel any horror. To Alex, this is nothing but the ticking of a clock. Empty, monotonous, but still with some small meaning attached to it.

He absorbs their live bodies into his internal Hive, but they have no souls to scream with. He is content.

_Blood spreads from every gutter, spurting as though the very streets are arteries being severed. Crimson rain falls from the sky, and the stars shoot down like fiery artillery - _

Within the blink of an eye the vision becomes the grey and brown of the industrial night once more. Alex stands still, eyes roving for movement.

Nothing.

_A nightmarish giggle _

He whirls about, viral spittle flying from his mouth as he growls and roars.

He sprints onward.

Into a warehouse, tearing apart more of the worthless soldiers. The fights aren't worth remembering, slaughters are not sung of by bards.

It is a blur, there is nothing but the slicing of his blades and the terrible lashing of his tendrils. The gunshots do little more than sting, and the grizzly bear tears through a flock of frozen rabbits.

The empty warehouse shakes. Alex freezes.

_The boxes topple and fall the walls crumple to dust, the bodies immolate and burn, the -_

He is thrown back into the real world, a dozen ants surrounding the deluded monster and stinging him. He swats them away, slicing the soldiers in half with a flick of his whip.

He begins striking all the boxes, anywhere that could hide that _little girl in her little red dress_.

Shelves smash to the ground, metal pieces twisted and fallen. A van is lifted and thrown against a wall. He throws himself into doorways to search empty rooms.

_A little girl staring at him through the glass of an office_

He runs for the door to block her escape, keeping his eyes upon the nonchalant girl. For a brief moment, the wall obscures his vision.

Dana. She stands in the office, fiddling with her jacket. She spots him and groans in annoyance. "Seriously? Alex, come on, Blackwatch is kinda gone now. I'd say it's safe enough to go out for dinner. Not that I'd rather eat a rat than another packet of two minute noodles, but...actually, I'm not sure about that. Depends how we cooked it. That's beside the point." She claps her hands together with that infectious excitement. "Throw on those new clothes, Alex, we are getting you SOCIALISED!"

"Dana..." Alex mutters. She disappears in a fade of ashes.

He screams, lashing out again to destroy any hiding place, though he already knows that he will find nothing.

He finds nothing.

"COME OUT!"

He roars and shrieks.

Nothing.

He presses on. His arms are permanently razor sharp, his eyes constantly roving. He tears into groups of soldiers with a reckless abandon, following the guidance of a dead man with the zeal of a poisoned man reaching for the antidote.

He is watched, and he knows it.

She stares at him, she skirts around him, she vanishes before him, she taunts him, she laughs at him, she _kills him, she absorbs him, she hunts you, I scare you._

Alex runs away. He flees like a rabbit before the wolf.

He takes his frustration out upon the world and upon his physical enemies, toppling everything he sees like a child in a tantrum. The little girl giggles at _you and your petty, petty existence. _

The lights provide comfort. He avoids the truly dark places where she rules. He take a flashlight from a dead soldier, and lights his way through the night.

He snarls at her, but she can smell his fear.

"What are you?" he asks

_A nightmarish giggle is the only response_

* * *

Blood and tears and charred corpses are his constant companions. Everywhere he looks he sees them flashing on and off as he is drawn into a different world.

In combat he fights like a mortal at the end of his mortality. He fights with a desperation to press on before she catches up. _But I'm always ahead. _

He walks into an empty corridor. He presses on at a sprint, as ghouls and ghosts taunt him from the screaming walls.

Ahead of him, a large chamber. He opens the doors. A crowded nightclub. Lasers illuminating the crowded denizens briefly as they gyrate in the smoke. He goes over to a bar and tries to look...socialised. He fails.

A nervous feeling gnaws at him, and his skin crawls as if it's being hit with bullets.

He orders a drink to look human.

Dana gave up on trying to drag him into the seething dance floor a long time ago, he had set his heels into the ground, and essentially become a boulder. Dana had sighed, rolled her eyes and muttered something about dogs and baths, before diving into the rolling mass of bodies like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Alex ground his teeth as a woman - clearly inebriated - began to talk to him about some inane nonsense. He tunes her out as he searches the dance floor for Dana.

She grabs his shoulder and winks as she says, "Let's get out of here, handsome."

Suddenly he loses control. Tendrils erupt out and grasp her wrist in a consuming grip. She screams as Alex tries - and fails - to bring the lashing tendrils under control. They reach out, pulling more and more shrieking dancers to him. He yells out for Dana to run as the massacre begins. He is pulled by the tendrils to the center of the floor.

The screams deafened him, until one by one they fade.

He is left on the dance floor, standing before a bloodied Dana. He reaches out with a hand, but she withdraws in fright.

"Why?" she asks, before fleeing.

In a second, the scene melts away, and he stands in a bloody warehouse. Broken guns are all that is left of the Replica clones.

He walks on toward another corridor.

* * *

He suddenly stops. _She is there._

_"I see you"_

He charges, as the world catches on fire and he burns. He swings his blades at her, but she laughs at his feeble attempts to harm her, like a puppy barking at thunder.

She vanishes. He is thrown forwards. The charred hallway is a testament to her power, a monument to all her reality.

Mercer runs on, flashlight illuminating the dark corners where she lurks.

_"I know you"_

He points the beam of light around, brandishing it like a sword.

_"You're not mine"_

She stands behind him, he is sure of it. That voice that whispers in his ear is behind him.

_"You're not theirs"_

He turns to see nothing.

_"You are nothing"_

He discards the empty light and sprints onward. There is nowhere but forwards.

Before him lies a corpse. A woman with auburn hair. She lies in a crumpled heap, as all bodies do. Her body is clear of blood, and her skin is pale and unblemished by life.

Dana lies before him, blood slowly spreading from the floor around her.

He screams his anguish, his voice joining all the souls in his head.

_She disappears in a cloud of ash, as a childish giggle, playful as a kitten, sounds in his ear._

He charges forward blades cutting deep into concrete walls. Blood spurts from the wounds and the building groans in pain.

She walks away from him slowly.

"COME BACK HERE!"

He pursues her, the well rehearsed cycle of the hunt playing in his mind. He imagines tearing the inhuman girl limb from limb, he imagines slicing her in half, the abomination destroyed forever. To his sides he sees a multitude of Danas, hung from a noose and twitching as blood drips to the floor. He roars anew, refusing to stop.

Mounds of dead copies litter the floor, his sister's corpses slowing him down as he leaps over them, unwilling to touch them.

His vision blurs and viral tears fall for the first time in his life. An old human trait finding its niche in the monster.

The little girl keeps walking on.

"WHAT ARE YOU?" he calls out again, in vain. No matter how hard he runs, she stays out of his reach with her calm walk.

The Danas call for his help, her voice echoing in the confined space. She is being shot, she is being torn apart, she is being burned, she is being cut. A thousand morbid images of his sister dying.

His claws become hands, and he claps them over his ears.

He runs after the little girl in the little red dress.

There is a turn in the hallway. A sharp right. The last stretches are mercifully empty. He rounds the corner to see a crossroads.

Finally, the little girl stops and turns to face him. He prepares to dash forward and -

"No, please, what are you doing? Stop!"

Dana cries out before him, backing away from some threat to the right of the crossroads. He can't see what it is.

"Dana!" He calls, but she doesn't hear him.

"Please don't, God, please, why? Why are you doing this?"

She backs away, as a shadow falls over her.

"Dana!" He is immobile. He tries to charge before her, to protect her. His legs remain still.

"Zeus! No!" Dana's eyes are wide in a primal fear. Tears fall from her eyes.

He walks into view. Zeus. His hood obscures his face, so Alex can't see whether he is smiling or whether he is nonchalant. Zeus stalks forward, as Dana turns to run. With inhuman speed, the viral monstrosity grabs the girl and begins to consume her. Time slows down.

Alex Mercer screams. He screams and cries and tears at the floor tiles. He rips his own clothes but they regenerate. He tries to bury himself in the floor, anything to escape Dana's shrieks.

The lashing tendrils and the transforming body...

It went on and on.

When Alex looks back up at the scene, Zeus begins to transform, the haze of red and black covering the monster. Dana stands before him bloodied and beaten. "Alex," she asks the fallen figure. "Why?"

Dana falls back to the ground, twisted as all corpses are twisted. The floor begins to cry blood.

He curls up where her body lies. The blood falls up to the ceiling.

* * *

_"Zeus." She stands before him, but he has no reason to strike. The infected tears fall to the floor and become twisting vines of red. She gestures._

He shakes his head.

_"Come and see how pathetic you are" _

He rises to his feet, humanly slow.

He stumbles forward like a drunkard or an ailing old man.

Zeus walks on to an elevator. The way down to Origin.

Where the vault lay waiting.

She walks with him, the little girl in the little red dress. Her shoes are blood, and her footprints are crimson.

Her dank hair is wet.

He sees her, but does not hear her. He can not sense her as he can sense so much else. He can only see her as she wishes to be seen. He can only hear her as she wishes to be heard.

Down they descend, the creaking elevator bringing back bad memories.

The doors open, and he sees a corridor that streches on and on, never ending. In the distance he sees a dark figure.

He approaches it, and it approaches him.

To the sides, there are portraits.

He could see them. The first man he had ever killed. The memories of that man's family played in the moving oils and paints.

The first time that man had ever kissed a girl, Zeus suddenly felt soft lips touching his own.

The gentle hug of a husband and wife. The tender embrace of a father and newborn son.

Candles being blown out atop birthday cakes.

On and on they went, every happy moment of every 'psychopath' that he had brought to justice. All those human moments that he'd ignored in the rush to consume and hunt.

He saw hours spent watching the eternally beating waves, saw minutes spent eating a hurried breakfast with loved ones, saw the spark of joy as hands touched. He felt the pain and triumph of encountering and overcoming trials and tribulations, he felt the warmth of love in his unbeating heart. He smelt the sweet scent of freshly cut grass, took joy in a clear blue sky.

He saw all the wasted minutes and hours. He saw all the spent time. He experiences the vividness of dreams. He -

On and on and on and on.

The sorrow of losing somebody dear, the sadness of love lost, the frustration of hardship. A thousand years of unknown experiences overwhelming him in their beauty.

...

In the final stretches he sees all the end moments, when the monster grabs them and pulls them into a painful embrace. Its eyes are dark and dead, like the eyes of a shark. He feels their terror as the inhuman monster destroys them.

...

They reach the end after a thousand years of walking. He stands before a mirror, and a reflection stands before him.

He is a monster. A hundred faces overlap and push out from his skull, a hundred bodies writhe beneath his own, a hundred hand punch and claw at the prison that he has become.

A hundred voices scream from his mouth, a horrifying cacophany of terror and anguish.

He tries to break the mirror, but he has no more strength, and the hard surface stays unblemished. He turns away from the truthful reflection, and it appears before him. The wall are the mirror. Everywhere he looks he sees himself. He tries to shut his eyes but cannot.

The room's walls press in, the mirrors enroaching. He stands in a coffin, with reflective interiors facing him from every direction. He screams at himself.

_"You are nothing. You are only human." The little girl walks away from him._

* * *

...time...

...passed...

...on...

* * *

The entire world is on fire, the facility is destroyed. The vault has been opened, and the Little Girl in the Little Red Dress is far, far away.

She doesn't matter.

Zeus smiles, beginning to walk away.

He sets off for his old home, painstakingly cleansed. His footprints leave twisting red vines growing upwards and outwards. He is ready to do what monsters like him do. The earthy timbre of Greene gives her approval. He already knows where he is heading. Penn Station. Seems suitable.

He was no longer only human. He knew that he was something more.

Zeus's broken mind works and schemes, as Alex screams within the coffin of mirrors.

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**Author's Note: **At first this story was just my way of exploring how Alex is still fundamentally human, with those pesky human weaknesses like the fear of losing someone he loves and the fear of what he can't understand. I decided that Alma would be a great character to bring out these fears in him, since she is his exact opposite - being a mental rather than physical monster, and fundamentally inhuman. Then I decided, that, hey, this would make a great chance to provide a different explanation for his FaceHeelTurn in Prototype 2 (I know that Radical already explained it, but I thought those comics didn't do it very well. Come on, who goes nuts because they see people are dicks? He saw plenty of dickery in P1 and was still okay. Go to a pet shop or something if you're a bit down, Alex, come on.) Anyway, please let me know what you think.

Oh, and I'm also deliberating on whether or not to expand this oneshot into a full blown story - with P2 and FEAR 2 taking place simultaneously. I would definitely focus on Alex/Zeus as opposed to Heller, with a trapped-in-his-own-body Alex watching the horror of his actions and trying to break out of his metaphorical coffin. Thoughts?

Love,

SaveItSilly


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